Son's computer crash, need some YD help-he leaves in 5 hours. - Setup

This is a discussion on Son's computer crash, need some YD help-he leaves in 5 hours. - Setup ; All, my son's apple G4 HD crashed we got a new HD 80Gig WD, the Yellow Dog
install went ok but on reboot the screen flashes a ? and apple logo and I
can do nothing else.
I am redoing ...

Son's computer crash, need some YD help-he leaves in 5 hours.

All, my son's apple G4 HD crashed we got a new HD 80Gig WD, the Yellow Dog
install went ok but on reboot the screen flashes a ? and apple logo and I
can do nothing else.

I am redoing the install again, thinking I missed something.

What should I look for here?

Re: Son's computer crash, need some YD help-he leaves in 5 hours.

On Sat, 09 Aug 2008, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.setup, in article, GrailKing wrote:
>All, my son's apple G4 HD crashed we got a new HD 80Gig WD, the Yellow
>Dog install went ok but on reboot the screen flashes a ? and apple logo
>and I can do nothing else.

1. I don't do Apple.
2. I don't do Yellow Dog

The flashing '?' means the BIOS can't find an O/S to load. In an x86
world, this happens because the boot-loader didn't get installed.
>I am redoing the install again, thinking I missed something.
>
>What should I look for here?

Don't know which boot loader you might be using - GRUB, LILO, or something
else exotic. But that _appears_ to be the problem. It could have something
to do with disk partitioning and where you did install what-ever it uses
for a boot loader. Best I can do for you - hopefully, a 'Mac' person will
show up soon.

Old guy

Re: Son's computer crash, need some YD help-he leaves in 5 hours.

Moe Trin wrote:
> On Sat, 09 Aug 2008, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.setup, in article
> , GrailKing wrote:
>
>>All, my son's apple G4 HD crashed we got a new HD 80Gig WD, the Yellow
>>Dog install went ok but on reboot the screen flashes a ? and apple logo
>>and I can do nothing else.
>
> 1. I don't do Apple.
> 2. I don't do Yellow Dog
>
> The flashing '?' means the BIOS can't find an O/S to load. In an x86
> world, this happens because the boot-loader didn't get installed.
>
>>I am redoing the install again, thinking I missed something.
>>
>>What should I look for here?
>
> Don't know which boot loader you might be using - GRUB, LILO, or something
> else exotic. But that _appears_ to be the problem. It could have something
> to do with disk partitioning and where you did install what-ever it uses
> for a boot loader. Best I can do for you - hopefully, a 'Mac' person will
> show up soon.

I think it's called MILO or SILO on the powerpc...
Well, it's SILO on sparc, anyway.

Re: Son's computer crash, need some YD help-he leaves in 5 hours.

GrailKing wrote:
> All, my son's apple G4 HD crashed we got a new HD 80Gig WD, the Yellow Dog
> install went ok but on reboot the screen flashes a ? and apple logo and I
> can do nothing else.

I know that Yellow Dog works, because my brother used in on his Apple
G4. I think you have to press a key or something to select the
bootloader from a menu.

Someone who knows how to operate a Mac should be able to help you.

Regards,

Mark.

--
Mark Hobley,
393 Quinton Road West,
Quinton, BIRMINGHAM.
B32 1QE.

Re: Son's computer crash, need some YD help-he leaves in 5 hours.

On Sat, 9 Aug 2008, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.setup, in article, Andrew Halliwell wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote:
>> Don't know which boot loader you might be using - GRUB, LILO, or something
>> else exotic. But that _appears_ to be the problem. It could have something
>> to do with disk partitioning and where you did install what-ever it uses
>> for a boot loader. Best I can do for you - hopefully, a 'Mac' person will
>> show up soon.
>
>I think it's called MILO or SILO on the powerpc...
>Well, it's SILO on sparc, anyway.

-rw-rw-r-- 1 gferg ldp 52455 Nov 13 2000 MILO-HOWTO

MILO is for the DEC Alpha - yes, SILO is the Sparc. A quicky with the
search engine turns up

BootX can only be used on OldWorld Apple systems with MacOS 9 or less
quik allows OldWorld Macs to boot without MacOS (not well supported)
yaboot can only be used on NewWorld Apple and IBM systems

Re: Son's computer crash, need some YD help-he leaves in 5 hours.

GrailKing wrote:
> All, my son's apple G4 HD crashed we got a new HD 80Gig WD, the Yellow Dog
> install went ok but on reboot the screen flashes a ? and apple logo and I
> can do nothing else.
>
> I am redoing the install again, thinking I missed something.
>
> What should I look for here?

For quick help on Linux, often IRC is good solution
(irc: server=irc.freenode.org channel=#linux)

Try also some web forums (i.e. works very good for ubuntu afair).

Re: Son's computer crash, need some YD help-he leaves in 5 hours.

On Sat, 09 Aug 2008 17:42:39 -0400, Mark Hobley wrote:
> GrailKing wrote:
>> All, my son's apple G4 HD crashed we got a new HD 80Gig WD, the Yellow
>> Dog
>> install went ok but on reboot the screen flashes a ? and apple logo and
>> I
>> can do nothing else.
>
> I know that Yellow Dog works, because my brother used in on his Apple
> G4. I think you have to press a key or something to select the
> bootloader from a menu.
>
> Someone who knows how to operate a Mac should be able to help you.
>
> Regards,
>
> Mark.
>
I think it's something simple, boot loader was Yaboot and I saw Anaconda
mentioned, we tried the "C" key and others but nothing got it off the
alternating file screen.

Re: Son's computer crash, need some YD help-he leaves in 5 hours.

GrailKing wrote:
> I think it's something simple, boot loader was Yaboot and I saw Anaconda
> mentioned, we tried the "C" key and others but nothing got it off the
> alternating file screen.

I found the following key sequences in various forums. This was for a
firewire drive, but I am not sure whether it applies to other types of drive:

ALT + APPLE + O + F

CMD + APPLE + O + F

The key sequence should display a boot prompt.

If this doesn't work first time, you may have to first boot from the
CDROM and run some commands to make the drive visible to the apple
bootloader.

Regards,

Mark.

--
Mark Hobley,
393 Quinton Road West,
Quinton, BIRMINGHAM.
B32 1QE.

Re: Son's computer crash, need some YD help-he leaves in 5 hours.

GrailKing writes:
>On Sat, 09 Aug 2008 17:42:39 -0400, Mark Hobley
> wrote:
>> GrailKing wrote:
>>> All, my son's apple G4 HD crashed we got a new HD 80Gig WD, the Yellow
>>> Dog
>>> install went ok but on reboot the screen flashes a ? and apple logo and
>>> I
>>> can do nothing else.
>>
>> I know that Yellow Dog works, because my brother used in on his Apple
>> G4. I think you have to press a key or something to select the
>> bootloader from a menu.
>>
>> Someone who knows how to operate a Mac should be able to help you.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Mark.
>>
>I think it's something simple, boot loader was Yaboot and I saw Anaconda
>mentioned, we tried the "C" key and others but nothing got it off the
>alternating file screen.

What is the alternating file screen.
Please describe in excruciating detail what happened as the system boots
up, from the point where you press the power on key.

Note that if you see a list of files to boot from it is the esc key or the
tab key that gets yo ua prompt to enter the name of the system you want to
boot from rather than the default.

But it looks like it is rescue disk time. I have no idea about yellow dog
so have no idea if what I say next makes sense, but put in the yellow dog
CD/DVD into the drive and boot up. It should boot from CD. and have a
rescue option. Unfortunately yaboot and lilo(which I know) are sufficiently
dissimilar that I have no confidence in my ability to lead you through a
reload of yaboot.
Alternatively reinstall or just update paying careful attention to the
bootloader stuff at the end.